Everyone is waiting. A sportswoman – a chess player from Yamal will compete for the title of the world champion

There is less than a week left before the match for the title of the world chess champion between the current title holder Ju Wenjun from China and the chess player from Yamal Alexandra Goryachkina.

The first part of the match will be played in Shanghai from the 4th to the 12th of January, and the second will be held in Vladivostok from the 15th to the 25th of January. The campus of the Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island was chosen as the venue of the Russian part of the tournament.

Alexandra Goryachkina is going to China on the 1st of January. In addition to the coaching staff, her father Yuriy Goryachkin and sister Oksana, a promising chess player, are going with her. By the way, the grandmaster considers her a kind of good luck talisman.

The match will be the first major chess event in the coming year. Russian chess players have not won the world title since 2008, when Alexandra Kosteniuk won the chess crown. It will be possible to watch the course of the tournament in the online mode.

Ju Wenjun won the world championship match against her compatriot Tan Zhongyi in May of 2018, and in November she defended her title in the world knockout championship, in the final match beating a Russian sportswoman Ekaterina Lagno.

Alexandra Goryachkina got the right to compete with the current champion, confidently winning the tournament of contenders, which had been held in Kazan in June of 2019. The Russian chess player, being the youngest participant of the tournament, showed the brilliant result, becoming the winner of the hardest competition in two rounds before the finish.

The first face-to-face match between Ju Wenjun and Alexandra Goryachkina after winning the right to compete for the chess crown by the Russian chess player took place at FIDE women’s Grand Prix in Skolkovo in September this year. The game ended in a draw: Ju Wenjun achieved the overwhelming advantage, but Alexandra defended hard and managed to save half a point. As a result, the chess players shared the second and third places.

The opening ceremony of the match will take place on the 4th of January at the hotel InterContinental Shanghai Jing An. The participants will play 12 games. The chess player, who will score 6.5 points, will be announced the winner. In a case of a draw after 12 games, the world champion will be defined on a tiebreak.